Property management

Property management is a big business. There are more than 220,000 property management firms with more than one employee in the U.S. Each month, property management firms collect payments in the form of rent, assessments, dues, fees, fines and deposits on behalf of the communities and homeowners associations that they manage. In all, these firms receive more than 34 million rent payments each month, representing $24 billion, according to First Manhattan Consulting Group.

Property management firms must ensure that all of these payments not only are applied to the correct general ledger account, but also to the correct resident ledger. Complicating matters, a single property management firm may collect payments for multiple entities across the country.

With margins in the property management space remaining razor-thin as a result of the economic downturn and the uneven recovery for rentals and housing, property management firms are eager to improve their collection strategies to avoid increasing rent, raising fees, borrowing funds, or avoiding necessary investments in the communities they manage. That’s why more property management firms are turning to multi-functional check cashing devices – which process paper checks, payments cards and identification (ID) cards all from a compact unit.

Automating paper and electronic payments processing with multi-function devices provides a range of operational and business benefits to property management firms. These benefits include: